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Local artist ruins historic mural

Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 01:00

A small Spanish town is trying to figure out what to do with a 19th-century painting of Christ that has been disfigured by a local artist who took it upon herself to restore it.

Juan Maria Ojeda, an official in Borja town, said 80-year-old Celia Gimenez decided to touch up the fresco of Christ wearing a crown of thorns in the Misericordia church because she thought it need restoration.

He said no-one realised how badly disfigured the painting was until she rang town hall to say what she had done.

The fate of the painting -of the genre known as Ecce Homo, or “Behold the Man” - has made news around the world.